Heart Health

Bypass surgery lowers risk of dying by 30% for diabetics

Study finds 30 percent lower risk of dying for diabetics with bypass surgery vs. stentA new study by Indian origin researcher has suggested that diabetic people have a 30 percent less chance of dying if they undergo coronary artery bypass surgery rather than opening the artery through angioplasty and inserting a stent.

Dr. Subodh Verma, a cardiac surgeon and principal author of the paper, said that although bypass surgery is more invasive than stenting, it is imperative that physicians and patients realize that long term mortality reduction is best achieved with bypass surgery.

Verma and Dr. Jan Friedrich, an intensivist at St. Michael’s, decided to conduct a meta-analysis of all existing randomized control trials comparing the two procedures- coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) and the angioplasty.

They also found that while patients with diabetes did better with CABG, the procedures was associated with an increased risk of non-fatal strokes. They said this may be related to the fact the heart has to be stopped during the procedure.

The study is published in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.

 

Long-lasting chest pains indicator of heart attack!

Researchers have claimed that patients suffering long-lasting chest pain are likelier to have a heart attack than those with pain of a shorter duration.

James McCord, M.D., a cardiologist at Henry Ford Hospital on the research team, said that patients can experience varying strength, location, and duration of chest pain, asserting that the variety of symptoms any one patient may experience during a heart attack is a challenge to the physician who is trying to distinguish between patients who are having a heart attack and those who are not.

Of 426 patients included in the study, 38 (less than 9 percent) had a final diagnosis of heart attack, with average chest pain duration of 120 minutes, compared with 40 minutes in patients without heart attack.

In patients with chest pain lasting less than five minutes, there were no heart attacks and no deaths at 30 days.

McCord said that these findings suggest that patients with chest pain lasting less than five minutes may be evaluated as an out-patient in their doctor’s office; while patients with chest pain greater than 5 minutes, without a clear cause, should seek prompt medical evaluation in an emergency department.

Patients were interviewed during the study to determine medical history and demographics. Those with a diagnosis of heart attack were significantly older.

The study has been published in Critical Pathways in Cardiology.

 

15% of common strokes occur in adolescents and young adults

A team of researcher including an Indian origin has suggested that 15 percent of the most common type of strokes occur in adolescents and young adults, and more young people are showing risk factors for such strokes.

Co-author neurologist Jose Biller of Loyola University Medical Center said that the impact of strokes in this age group is devastating to the adolescent or young adult, their families and society.

About 85 percent of all strokes are ischemic, meaning they are caused by blockages that block blood flow to the brain. And more young people have risk factors for ischemic strokes.

Those risks include high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, abnormal cholesterol levels, congenital heart disease and smoking.

Strokes in young people have a disproportionally large economic impact, because they can disable patients before their most productive years. And while coping with the shock of having a stroke, “younger survivors may be dealing with relationships, careers and raising children – issues that require additional awareness and resources,” the consensus report said.

Biller, one of the nation’s leading experts on stroke in young people, is second author of the consensus report. Biller is chair of the Department of Neurology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. First author of the report is Aneesh Singhal, MD of Massachusetts General Hospital.

The study has been published in the journal Neurology.

 

Why mornings are deadliest for heart attack deaths

An Indian scientist has claimed that evidence from people suffering from heart disease supports the existence of the molecular link first discovered in laboratory mice between the body’s natural circadian rhythms and cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death.

Mukesh Jain, M.D., said that it pinpoints a previously unrecognized factor in the electrical storm that makes the heart’s main pumping chambers suddenly begin to beat erratically in a way that stops the flow of blood to the brain and body.

Termed ventricular fibrillation, the condition causes sudden cardiac death (SCD), in which the victim instantly becomes unconscious and dies unless CPR or a defibrillator is available to shock the heart back into its steady beat.

The peak risk hours when SCD strikes range from 6 am to 10 am, with a smaller peak in the late afternoon. Scientists long suspected a link between SCD and the 24-hour body clock, located in the brain.

It governs 24-hour cycles of sleep and wakefulness called circadian rhythms that coordinate a range of body functions with the outside environment.

Jain’s group discovered a protein called KLF15 that helps regulate the heart’s electrical activity, and occurs in the body in levels that change like clockwork throughout the day. KLF15 helps form channels that allow substances to enter and exit heart cells in ways critical to maintaining a normal, steady heartbeat.

They first discovered that patients with heart failure have lower levels of KLF15. Then, they established in laboratory mice that KLF15 is the molecular link between SCD and the circadian rhythm. And mice with low levels of the protein have the same heart problems as people with SCD.

 Source: zee news

Better diet tied to fewer deaths after heart attack

As lifestyle changes – specifically those geared toward making changes in your diet – will have an impact

People who changed their eating habits for the better following a heart attack tended to live longer than those who stuck to eating not-so-heart-healthy foods in a new U.S. study

Among some 4,000 men and women, those whose post-heart attack diets improved the most were 30 percent less likely to die from any cause and 40 percent less likely to die of heart disease, compared to those whose diets improved least.

“This study really suggests that lifestyle changes – specifically those geared toward making changes in your diet – will have an impact,” Dr. David J. Frid, a preventive cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, told Reuters Health.

“I think it`s something we`ve assumed for a long time, but we had no compelling data to substantiate it,” Frid, who wasn`t involved in the new study, said.

Research into how diet improvements may be linked to improvements in health after a heart attack is limited, Dr. Shanshan Li at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and her colleagues write in JAMA Internal Medicine.

For the new analysis Li`s group used data from two long-term studies of male and female healthcare workers who reported major lifestyle and medical events every two years and filled out diet questionnaires about every four years.

The researchers included data on 2,258 women and 1,840 men who had no history of heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular disease or cancer when they began participating in the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. But they all later had heart attacks.

Based on the questionnaires, researchers assigned each person a diet-quality score that factored in several diet components, including how much red and processed meat, nuts, sugar-sweetened beverages, vegetables, fats, alcohol, whole grains and salt the person ate.

During the studies, there were 1,133 deaths from all causes. Of those, 558 were linked to cardiovascular disease.

Among the 20 percent of men and women with the greatest post-heart attack improvements in their diet quality score, 140 died. That compares to 247 deaths among the 20 percent of people with the least-improved diet quality.

“They found the benefit is around a 30 percent reduction in subsequent mortality and cardiac events. When you compare that to other interventions we do… that reduction is almost as good as what we see with statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs),” Frid said.

An overall high-quality diet score after a heart attack was tied to about 24 percent fewer deaths from any cause during the study, compared to those people with the lowest diet-quality scores.

Li, who did not reply to a request for comment, and her colleagues point out that their results are consistent with past findings about Mediterranean-style diets, which are high in olive oil, nuts, fish and fresh fruits and vegetables.

In an accompanying editorial, Drs. Ramon Estruch and Emilio Ros, of the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain, said the diet score used in the new study shares many aspects of the Mediterranean diet.

For example, good diets are considered those high in whole grains, fruits and vegetables and low in trans fats, meat and sugary drinks.

“The problem is it`s really difficult to change the dietary habits of the people,” Estruch said.

Fortunately, he added that little changes in diet can add up for people.

“Little changes in the dietary habits can lead to big changes in the health,” he said.

 

Big belly raises death risk in heart attack survivors

http://topnews.in/files/big-belly101.jpgHigh waist circumference, severe obesity has been linked with the greatest risk of death in heart attack survivors, according to a research.

Professor Tabassome Simon said that the impact of obesity on long term mortality and cardiovascular complications in the general population has been the object of recent debate and much emphasis has also been given to the deleterious role of abdominal obesity.

Simon said that at the time of a heart attack, early mortality tends to be lower in obese patients, a phenomenon well known in critical care situations and described as the `obesity paradox`.

At 5 years, absolute mortality was highest in the leanest patients (BMI less than 22 kg /m2) and lowest in patients with BMI between 25 and 35 kg /m2 (i.e. overweight and mild obesity). Patients with severe obesity (BMI = 35 kg/m2) had a markedly increased mortality after 3 years. Severe abdominal obesity (waist circumference more than 100 cm in women and more than 115 cm in men) was also associated with increased long-term mortality.

Simon said that as waist circumference is strongly linked to BMI, the researchers determined the upper quartile of waist circumference within each BMI category and used both variables together to determine their respective role in association with long-term mortality.

She added that they found that both lean patients (BMI less than 22 kg/m2) and very obese patients (BMI =35 kg/m2) had an increased risk of death at 5 years: + 41 percent and + 65 percent, respectively. Being in the upper quartile of waist circumference was also an indicator of increased mortality at 5 years (+ 44 percent).

 

Listening to 30 mins of music can improve heart health

http://drkimfoster.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/music.jpgResearchers have discovered that listening to favorite music substantially improves endothelial function in Coronary Artery Disease.

The study evaluated the effects of listening to favorite music on endothelial function through changes of circulating blood markers of endothelial function: the stable end products of nitric oxide, asymmetric dimethylarginine, symmetric dimethylarginine and xanthine oxidase in 74 patients with stable CAD.

Professor Deljanin Ilic said that the combination of music and exercise training led to the most improvement in endothelial function. Improvements in endothelial function were associated with significant improvements in exercise capacity.

“Listening to joyful music for 30 minutes has been associated with improved endothelial function,” she said.

Source: Zee News

 

Biggest heart attack risks for Indians revealed

Indian researchers have conducted a data mining exercise to find out important risk factors in increasing the chances of an individual having a heart attack.

The authors confirm that the usual suspects high blood cholesterol, intake of alcohol and passive smoking play the most crucial role in `severe,` `moderate` and `mild` cardiac risks, respectively.

Subhagata Chattopadhyay of the Camellia Institute of Engineering in Kolkata used 300 real-world sample patient cases with various levels of cardiac risk – mild, moderate and severe and mined the data based on twelve known predisposing factors: age, gender, alcohol abuse, cholesterol level, smoking (active and passive), physical inactivity, obesity, diabetes, family history, and prior cardiac event.

He then built a risk model that revealed specific risk factors associated with heart attack risk.

Chattopadhyay explained that the essence of this work essentially lies in the introduction of clustering techniques instead of purely statistical modeling, where the latter has its own limitations in `data-model fitting` compared to the former that is more flexible.

He said that the reliability of the data used, should be checked, and this has been done in this work to increase its authenticity. I reviewed several papers on epidemiological research, where I`m yet to see these methodologies, used.

The study has been published in International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.

 

Back from the dead: Australian woman revived after 42 minutes

Vanessa Tanasio, declared clinically dead but revived after 42 minutes by a cardiologist Dr Wally Ahmar, who unblock the arteries to her heart

Australian doctors have saved the life of a woman who was clinically dead for 42 minutes.

The patient Vanessa Tanasio aged 41 was rushed to hospital after a major heart attack, but was declared clinically dead soon after arrival.

With the aid of a hi-tech machine that kept blood flowing to her brain, doctors at Melbourne’s MonashHeart managed to unblock vital arteries and return her heart to a normal rhythm.

The hospital today described her survival as “astonishing”.

Doctors say Vanessa Tanasio, a mother of two from the suburb of Narre Warren, needed numerous defibrillator shocks, including one in the ambulance on her way to hospital.

She said she was eager to get home. “I’m feeling excellent. For someone who has been dead for nearly an hour of this week I am feeling tremendously well” Through hospitals telephone

Emergency medics used a device called LUCAS 2 to keep her blood flowing while cardiologist Dr Wally Ahmar worked to unblock the arteries to her heart.

Tanasio, a sales representative for an earthmoving equipment company, said she had no history of heart problems.

“This has taken me completely by surprise. I am relieved to still be here for my children. The doctors and the nurses have been awesome. The machine is awesome.”

US health becomes far worse than other countries

Compared to other major nations, the overall health outcomes of the United States have been found to be significantly lacking.

Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) found that every major cause of premature death – from heart disease to interpersonal violence, U.S. fares worse than its economic peers.

Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the report analyzed both in the United States and 34 countries– available for 291 diseases, and injuries that cause death and disability.

A team of global researchers highlighted the impact of premature deaths in children and young adults on each nation, as well as the overall effects of disabling conditions such as lower back pain and major depression.  The researchers also examined 67 known health risk factors associated with both fatal and non-fatal health disorders.

The study’s results were presented to government officials at a White House.” Dr. Christopher Murray, the IHME director and one of the lead authors on the study, told FoxNews.com. “(It’s also hard) understanding what the leading causes of ill health are and how do we stack up and who in the US is doing a good job.  Our goal is to provide that big picture view.”

While the United States has made many steps in major areas – such as preventing premature deaths from stroke and breast cancer – the country has fallen behind in health. Ischemic heart disease still remains the leading cause of premature death. It accounted for 15.9 percent of premature deaths in the U.S. in 2010, followed by lung cancer, which accounted for 6.6 percent of deaths.

Moreover, Alzheimer’s disease, liver cancer, Parkinson’s and kidney cancer were all found to be on the upswing, accounting for increase in premature deaths in the U.S.  Murray and his team were also surprised to find that deaths attributed to road traffic injuries, drug abuse and self-harm were more prevalent than previously thought.  Drug use disorders accounted for more years of life lost than both prostate cancer and brain cancer combined – up 448 percent since 1990.

Low back pain was found to be the leading cause of years lived with disability in the United States, followed by major depressive disorder and other musculoskeletal disorders.  Murray noted that while the United States has spent a great amount of money and effort to find cures for fatal conditions like cardiovascular disease and cancer, the same kind of attention hasn’t been given to the leading causes of disability.

“The number one risk factor is diet and that’s followed by tobacco and then obesity and then high blood pressure and physical inactivity,” Murray said. Out of its 34 economic peer countries in Europe, Asia and North America, the U.S. ranked 27th in disease burden brought on by dietary factors, 27th on high body mass index (BMI) and 29th in blood sugar levels.

Murray hopes that future researchers will study these regions to determine what government officials and the Americans can do to make improvements to the country’s overall health outcomes.